"Precedent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being his candidate. He replied that I am very young, and after many circumlocutions he said flatly that he doesn't know if I would be accepted or not as a candidate by his followers; but in case I were, the conditions precedent would be: first, that I would not interfere in any way in the affairs of the district, which would be ventilated in the town, as previously; secondly, that I should bear the costs of the election, which would amount approximately to ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... the fiercest shock of arms it had yet experienced in the course of the Rising. "The enemy," wrote Kosciuszko in his report, "stood all night under arms. We awaited the dawn with the sweetest hope of victory." These hopes were founded on the precedent of Raclawice and on the battles in which Kosciuszko had fought in the United States, where he had seen British regulars routed by the American farmers. But as hostilities were about to begin with the morning, Wodzicki, examining the proceedings through his ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... in the earth: I too have my unbelief as well as you—I can not believe that a lie on the belief of which has depended our highest development. You may say you have a higher to bring in. But that higher you have become capable of by the precedent lie. Yet you vaunt truth! You would sink us low indeed, making out falsehood our best nourishment—at some period of our history at least. If, however, what I call true and high, you call false and low—my assertion ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... (my Lady) Polixenes for Leontes: O thou Thing, (Which Ile not call a Creature of thy place, Least Barbarisme (making me the precedent) Should a like Language vse to all degrees, And mannerly distinguishment leaue out, Betwixt the Prince and Begger:) I haue said Shee's an Adultresse, I haue said with whom: More; shee's a Traytor, and Camillo is A Federarie with her, and one that knowes What ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... as to His Excellency might seem fit. So far, however, from complying with a very reasonable request, Sir Robert regretted the absence of some observances, the nature of which was never ascertained, and felt compelled to resist a precedent which might lead to injurious consequences. The Assembly were staggered. With very considerable reason they were offended at the Executive, who pretended to the right of money grants in the Assembly. The House went into committee, by a majority of one, and ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Spain's difficulty should be Cuba's opportunity, issued a Declaration of Independence. The document, dated from Manzanillo, thus stated the case: "In arming ourselves against the tyrannical government of Spain, we must, according to precedent in all civilized countries, proclaim before the world the cause that impels us to take this step, which, though likely to entail considerable disturbance now, will ensure future happiness. It is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... clearly an intentional reduction in the burden of villain tenure. This fact makes emphasis upon the payment of money as the distinguishing feature of the changed relations between landlord and tenant in this period misleading. There was every precedent for requiring a money payment in the place of services not wanted. When, therefore, a great many services were simply allowed to lapse, it is an indication that it was impossible to exact the payment. It makes ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... her deserts kind and hospitable, Lets her great destinies be waved aside By smooth, lip-reverent, formal infidels, Who weigh the God they not believe with gold, And find no spot in Judas, save that he, Driving a duller bargain than he ought, Saddled his guild with too cheap precedent. O Faith! if thou art strong, thine opposite Is mighty also, and the dull fool's sneer Hath ofttimes shot chill palsy through the arm 40 Just lifted to achieve its crowning deed, And made the firm-based heart, that would have quailed The rack or fagot, shudder like a leaf Wrinkled ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... with him; he tells me of the high vote of the Commons this afternoon, which I also heard at White Hall, that the proceedings of the Lords in the case of my Lord Clarendon are an obstruction to justice, and of ill precedent to future times. This makes every body wonder what will be the effect of it, most thinking that the King will try him by his own Commission. It seems they were mighty high to have remonstrated, but some said that was too great an appeale to the people. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... its stead Shall keep us join'd." I then forthwith began "Yet in my mortal swathing, I ascend To higher regions, and am hither come Through the fearful agony of hell. And, if so largely God hath doled his grace, That, clean beside all modern precedent, He wills me to behold his kingly state, From me conceal not who thou wast, ere death Had loos'd thee; but instruct me: and instruct If rightly to the pass I tend; thy words The way directing ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... conceived there could be no function more honourable, more sacred, or more beneficial. An upright judge, with his own passions and prejudices subdued, attentive to the principles of justice by which alone the happiness of the world can be promoted, and by the rectitude of his decisions affording precedent and example to future generations, he considered as a character that must command the reverence and love ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and, as we have abundant proof, other forms suddenly created will not act, but rapidly retrograde to the old form. Moreover, such regulations as a despot makes, if really operative, are so because of their fitness to the social state. His acts being very much swayed by general opinion—by precedent, by the feeling of his nobles, his priesthood, his army—are in part immediate results of the national character; and when they are out of harmony with the national character, they are soon practically abrogated. The failure of Cromwell permanently to establish a new social condition, and ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... since gone by—at any rate, no such luck was mine. My guardian angel was either woefully ignorant of metallurgy, or the stores had been surreptitiously ransacked; and as to the other expedient, I frankly confess I should have liked some better security for its result, than the precedent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... be reflected only from what is most divine in man. It was a strange moment for it to appear, for at no time had Bressant's moral level been so low as now; but, happily, the phenomenon is by no means without precedent in human nature. God is never ashamed to declare the share He holds in a sinner's heart, however black ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... demands that our public schools shall not, by clinging to precedent and convention, fall notably behind industry and government in appropriating the fruits of modern scientific research. As the doctor varies the diet to the needs of each patient and each affliction, so must the school serve the intellectual and social ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien
... with deep reverence of the more ancient ancients of the ages, and revered all that they said and did. And the rural Chinese to-day says that what did for the sages of olden times must do for him to-day. The conservative instinct leads the Chinese to attach undue importance to precedent, and therefore the people at Hong-shih-ai, knowing that the village has been in the same pitiable condition for generations, live by conservatism, and make no effort ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... again Judge Maynard's measured progress was momentarily barred. Curiosity may have prompted it, and then again it may have been that he was betrayed by the very fury of his desperate, eleventh hour effort to assert his right to the center of that stage—the right of long-established precedent—yet even those two long files of old men gasped aloud their dismay at his temerity when Old Jerry thrust his way forward and planted himself for a second time squarely ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... a half-ruined, mouldering, mediaeval city. It is to be hoped that those who planted these luxuriant trees may have lived to enjoy their grace and beauty. Under Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain was a great and thriving nation, almost beyond precedent. Her colonial possessions rivaled those of the entire world; but her glory has vanished, and her decadence has been so rapid as to be phenomenal, until she is now so humbled there are very few to do ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... these is a haunting affair of body-snatching, or rather of an early escapade of the notorious BURKE, who was asked to supply a red-haired corpse, and not finding one produced instead a gentleman who had yet to fulfil the condition precedent to body-snatching, i.e. who had to be killed first and snatched afterwards. This is certainly as grim as anything I have met over the Castellated signature. Beside it, "The Smile on the Portrait," the tale of a jealous husband who becomes a maniac, is almost soothing. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... Francois should give up the duchy of Burgundy to Charles, and marry Eleanor of Portugal, Charles's sister; that Francois should also abandon his claims on Flanders, Milan, and Naples, and should place two sons in the Emperor's hands as hostages. Following the precedent of Louis XI. in the case of Normandy, he summoned an assembly of nobles and the Parliament of Paris to Cognac, where they declared the cession of Burgundy to be impossible. He refused to return to Spain, and made alliances ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... he answered, "you will create a precedent. There is no recorded case of a laborer claiming what he calls his rights when his life is at stake. Even an American tramp has been known to work like ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... here; and for a long time I apprehend was sufficiently obscure, though doing they say a great deal in a small way; but the Mallory case made his fortune about ten years ago. That was a barony by writ of summons which had been claimed a century before, and failed. Hatton seated his man, and the precedent enabled three or four more gentlemen under his auspices to follow that example. They were Roman Catholics, which probably brought him the Mallory case, for Hatton is of the old church; better than that, they were all gentlemen of great estate, and there is no doubt their champion was ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... higher understanding of Nature's method and accomplishment as a precedent to study and observation of our national parks, I seek enormously to enrich the enjoyment not only of these supreme examples but of all examples of world making. The same readings which will prepare you ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... France the same honors that were paid to the Empress of Austria at the celebration of the last marriage. The canopy and all the paraphernalia of royalty will be assigned to the new Empress, and the Emperor will furthermore make a concession on this occasion which is without precedent in the annals of the realm: at table he will resign the first place to his daughter, and take the second place himself. Nothing will be left undone to give these ceremonies their full splendor and to show the interest with which these new ties are regarded here. ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... aid from man or circumstance to one who felt herself mastered. Victor could make her treacherous to her wishes, in revolt against them, though the heart protested. His first conquest of her was in her blood, to weaken a spirit of resistance. For the precedent of submission is a charm upon the faint-hearted through love: it unwinds, unwills them. Nataly resolved fixedly, that there must be a day for speaking; and she had her moral sustainment in the resolve; she had also a tormenting consciousness of material support ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... voice in determining what those terms shall be, but we shall, I feel sure, have a voice in determining whether they shall be made lasting or not by the guarantees of a universal covenant, and our judgment upon what is fundamental and essential as a condition precedent to permanency should be spoken now, not afterward, when ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... and still continues, one of of the greatest mysteries in the English constitution; and in some respects, notwithstanding the accurate genius of that government, these privileges are at present as undetermined as were formerly the prerogatives of the crown. Such privileges as are founded on long precedent cannot be controverted: but though it were certain, that former kings had not in any instance taken notice of bills lying before the houses, (which yet appears to have been very common,) it follows not, merely from their never exerting such a power, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... condemned, let us suppose a case, which is not very uncommon. A young man, while preparing for college, takes a school. When he first enters upon the duties of his office, he is diffident and timid, and walks cautiously in the steps which precedent has marked out for him. Distrusting himself, he seeks guidance in the example which others have set for him, and very probably he imitates precisely, though it may be insensibly and involuntarily, the manners ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... elapsed before Judge Parkman replied, and he gnawed the end of his grizzled mustache, debating the consequences of dishonoring precedent—that ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... lord, as your lordship will quickly apprehend when the new point is brought before your notice. A question of principle is here which may form a precedent for the guidance of future Judges, as did the famous case of Perryman v. Lister, which went to the House of Lords about prosecuting a man for stealing a gun. This is about a pig, my lord—a little pig, no doubt, and although there is not ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... to be no time for discussion on questions of precedent, so we began to climb together, reaching a great branch about twenty feet from the ground, no easy task for me, encumbered as I was ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... rule, apparently an invention of Collado's, has no precedent in Rodriguez or in linguistic derivation. The n in this construction is the contracted form of the classical mu, the source for what Collado ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... send her priests to the altar in habiliments that were fashionable before the fall of the Roman Empire, in token of her immovable conservatism? And, lastly, does not the Law, lumbering on in the wake of progress, symbolise its subjection to precedent by head-gear reminiscent of the days ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... Madeline, "have you heard that this year's junior ushers are going to keep up the precedent, out of compliment ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... of people, under all kinds of conditions, had given him the experience which enabled him to be at his ease under any circumstances, even the most unfamiliar, and certainly talking to Helena Langley was an experience that had no precedent in the Dictator's life. But he talked to her readily, with great pleasure; he felt a little surprise at her obvious willingness to talk to him and accept his judgment upon many things; but he set this down as one of the few agreeable conditions ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... honorable part; the venerable and beautiful Lucretia Mott gave her benign presence to the gatherings; Lydia Maria Child made heavy sacrifices in the good cause. In the common ardor, and with a Quaker precedent, women took part as speakers. Women's rights was closely united with anti-slavery; and hence came a fresh odium from conservative quarters, while the admirable bearing of the leading women won growing favor for both lines of emancipation. The makers of ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... England. 'Terza rima,' attempted by Shelley, Byron, Morris, and Mrs. Browning, has not yet become acclimatised. Blank verse, although originally remodelled by Surrey upon the versi sciolti of the Italians, has departed widely from Italian precedent, first by its decasyllabic structure, whereas Italian verse consists of hendecasyllables; and, secondly, by its greater force, plasticity, and freedom. The Spenserian stanza, again, is a new and original ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... yet no precedent in Church history for a bastard's donning the scarlet, the pope hunted up four false witnesses who declared that Caesar was the son of Count Ferdinand of Castile; who was, as we know, that valuable person Don Manuel Melchior, and who played ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... senior (the father of the episcopal rector and honorary treasurer of the Plutoria University) and stated that he proposed to give his lectures for nothing. The trustees of the college protested; they urged that the case might set a dangerous precedent which other professors might follow. While fully admitting that Dr. McTeague's lectures were well worth giving for nothing, they begged him to reconsider his offer. But he refused; and from that day on, in spite of all offers that he should retire on double ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... answered, "I am sure I hope not, Edward; but are the qualifications we require in companions for our daughters, always such as are most reconcileable with our good sense or our consciences; a single communication with an objectionable character is a precedent, if known and unobserved, which will be offered to excuse acquaintances with worse persons: with the other sex, especially, their acquaintance should ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... snorting train continued to move round and round, but there was no onward progress. The engineer and passengers descended to the platform to view the phenomenon. An English railroad guard approached Abhoya and her husband. Contrary to all precedent, he volunteered his services. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... be that we who live In this new land apart, beyond The hard old world grown fierce and fond And bound by precedent and bond, May read the riddle right and give New hope to those who dimly see That all things may be yet for good, And teach the world at length to be One ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... freedom, our fathers left their sons a saving and excellent heritage. In the storm of war this institution was lost. I thank God as heartily as you do that human slavery is gone forever from American soil. But the freedman remains. With him, a problem without precedent or parallel. Note its appalling conditions. Two utterly dissimilar races on the same soil—with equal political and civil rights—almost equal in numbers, but terribly unequal in intelligence and responsibility—each pledged against fusion—one for a century in ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... old family servant, a coloured woman, a sort of half-housekeeper—half-friend. She resembled him so much, that it was generally believed she was his sister. Well, he tried to have her laid in their family vault, and it was refused; the directors thought it would be creating a bad precedent—they said, as they would not sell lots to coloured persons, they couldn't consistently permit them to be buried in those ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... Sometimes, though rarely, black men had come here, and from them they had heard of the existence of men much whiter than themselves, who sailed on the sea in ships, but for the arrival of such there was no precedent. We had, however, been seen dragging the boat up the canal, and he told us frankly that he had at once given orders for our destruction, seeing that it was unlawful for any stranger to enter here, when a message had come from "She-who-must-be-obeyed," saying that our lives were to be spared, and ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... upon hearing this remark, lowered his head and gave himself to protracted reflection. "You're indeed grown dull!" he cried; "why you've a precedent ready at hand to suit your case! Cousin Lin's birthday affords a precedent, and what you did in former years for cousin Lin, you can in this instance likewise do for cousin Hsueeh, and it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... decide. Our situation is not without a precedent. A few months ago the Count de Lavalette was condemned to death. The King wished to pardon him, but his ministers and friends opposed it. Though the King was master, what did he do? He seemed to be deaf to all the supplications made in the prisoner's behalf. The scaffold was erected, and ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... pin its faith on insecure deductions. The heaviest burden which religion can have to bear is the burden of tradition, and humour is the determined foe of everything that is conventional and traditional. The Pharisaical spirit loves precedent and authority; the humorous spirit loves all that is swift and shifting and subversive and fresh. One of the reasons why the orthodox heaven is so depressing a place is that there seems to be no room in it for laughter; it is all harmony and meekness, sanctified by nothing but the gravest of ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Missourians; but if discipline and subordination be the criterion of merit, these soldiers were worthless indeed. Yet when their exploits have rung through all America, it would be absurd to deny that they were excellent irregular troops. Their victories were gained in the teeth of every established precedent of warfare; they were owing to a singular combination of military qualities in the men themselves. Without discipline or a spirit of subordination, they knew how to keep their ranks and act as one man. Doniphan's regiment marched through New Mexico more like a band of free ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... The women who are obliged to work are of the poorer classes, and have not that leisure and opportunity preliminary to any specialized acquirement; while those who have leisure are supported in that position both by money and by precedent and habit, and have no immediate stimulation to lift them out of it. They sometimes entertain ideas of freedom and plan occupational interests, but they have usually become thoroughly habituated to their unfreedom, and continue ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... love, From which may rude Death never startle them, But grow upon them like a glorious vision Of unconceived and awful happiness, Solemn but splendid, full of shapes and sounds, Swallowing its precedent in victory. Let them so love that men and boys may say, Lo! how they love each other! till their love Shall ripen to a proverb unto all, Known when their faces are forgot in the land. And as for me, Camilla, as for me, Think not thy tears will make my name grow green,— The dew ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... thing is without precedent, sir! These mitigating circumstances may be brought to bear on the Commander-in-Chief, and may be embodied in a recommendation to mercy! They should have no weight in the finding of the verdict," said the President, "which should be in accordance ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Almighty and his Saints, and more especially to Edward the Confessor, who lay interred at Westminster, for the joyful news which so unexpectedly had arrived. The journey on foot was not to be drawn into precedent when others succeeded to the mayoralty, nor supplant the riding in state which had been customary on such occasions.(771) The reception given to the king by the Londoners on his return from France, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... solidly upon the laws of God. It has supplied Joseph Smith with a warrant for polygamy in the social usages of the Arab sheiks three thousand years ago. It has opened a sacred refuge for every lie and wrong; no wildest form of which could fail to find some precedent within these Hebrew histories, which tell the story of a people's upward growth from savagery. It has furnished an arsenal stocked with proof texts, from which, through many generations, priests and doctors have armed themselves to ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... Napoleon claimed a precedent in the history of the ancient Franks, was to have two objects: first, to make such alterations and reforms in the Constitution of the Empire as circumstances should render advisable; secondly, to assist at the coronation of the Empress Maria Louisa. Her ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... This would be, the newspaper stated, a magnificent musical solemnity, for the tenor Montrose, who had been absent six years from Paris, had just won, throughout Europe and America, a success without precedent; moreover, he would be supported by the illustrious Swedish singer, Helsson, who had not been heard in ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... war? What has been the source of the spirit of self-immolation which has driven the intellectual and imaginative section of French youth to hold out both hands to catch the full downpour of the rain of death? There is no precedent for it in French history, and we may observe for ourselves how new a thing it was, and how unexpected, by comparing with the ardent and radiant letters and poems of the youngest generation the most patriotic expressions ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... by the regency of Canton, and would be insisted on previous to the granting a permission for victualling the ship for her future voyage, the commodore, who was resolved never to establish so dishonourable a precedent, took all possible precaution to prevent the Chinese from facilitating the success of their unreasonable pretensions, by having him in their power at Canton; and, therefore, for the security of his ship, and the great treasure ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... for our so vigorously opposing Mr. Wood's coinage, is, because we have always been imposed upon in our copper money, and we find he is treading exactly in the steps of his predecessors, and thinks he has a right to cheat us because he can shew a precedent for it.' In truth, there was a vast number of counterfeits of those coins, which had been imported, chiefly from Scotland, as appears from a proclamation prohibiting the Importation of them in 1697" ("History St. Patrick's Cathedral," p, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... of my freehold by the arbitrary act of two or three committee-men; the fundamental law of England knowing no such constitution, abhorring such administrations: and that the Hon. Court would release your petitioner from the injurious effects of the said committee's act, and explode so pernicious a precedent." ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... scurvy were such a customary accompaniment of long voyages in those days that the condition of Flinders' company at the termination of this protracted navigation was healthy almost beyond precedent. But this young captain had learnt how to manage a ship in Cook's school, and had profited from his master's admonitions. Cook, in his Endeavour voyage of 1770 and 1771, brought his people through a protracted period at sea with, "generally speaking," freedom from ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... is to be put away in the store containing other advertising material, that individual, local and parliamentary liberties are abolished, that the government is arbitrary and absolute, that no institution, law, dogma, or precedent affords any guarantee for it against the rights of the people, that property and lives are wholly at its mercy, that there are no longer any rights of man.—Six weeks later, when, through the protest ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of suspense is not without precedent in archaeology. "Antiquarian lore," as Dr. Munro remarks by implication, can "distinguish between true and false antiquities." {5a} But time is needed for the verdict, as we see when Dr. Munro describes "the Breonio Controversy" about disputed stone objects, a controversy ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... splendid robes of office, looked in amazement to see their Queen forget her state in such a presence, and outrage every precedent by crying out in the unlearned language of the people, before this stately company; and the face of the dignified Primate flamed with wrath at this unseemliness. But Caterina, noting nothing, turned to receive their homage ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... roused among Englishmen grew cooler in fact with every step which the Revolution took. While the Declaration of the Rights of Man roused France to a frenzy of enthusiasm, it was set aside as a dream by the practical islanders who based their rights on precedent and not on theory. The abolition of all social privileges on the 12th of August, the most characteristic step in the French Revolution, was met with grave disapproval by a people more alien from social equality than any people in Europe. Every ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... the minds of her girls to the extent of three full annual subscriptions for Josephine, Adelaide, and Madeline respectively; and that triplet of fair students, who, separately or conjointly, were at all times competent to the establishment of a precedent for the graceful charities of Hendrik good society, handsomely led off with a ten-dollar investment in "fountain" pens, "cream-laid assembly note," motto-wafers, Blessington envelopes "with crest and initial," ivory tablets, pencil-sharpeners, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... an excellent precedent for every other city and town in the Union. A few days ago the manager of a popular theatre there was fined $100 for advertising a spectacular exhibition by setting up indecent posters. It is high time ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... Do-funny, was unique as an individual, perhaps in the very fact of an individuality unembarrassed by the limitations of convention, of education and of precedent, he becomes in a sense typical of his ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... on to illustrate historically the separation of the sexes in places of public worship, from the time of the Jews and the primitive church down to the modern Greek Church, so that at least the early Methodists had good precedent for ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... we suppose, whose nest-building we had watched with so much interest. She also had a youngster under her charge. But how was this! a brown baby clad like herself! Could it be that the sons and daughters of this warbler family outrage all precedent by wearing their grown-up dress in the cradle? We consulted the authorities and found our conclusion ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... at Christ Church was significant. Men felt that the days of monasteries were past, and the Church was ready to welcome and to extend the New Learning. But his changes were a dangerous precedent; as Fuller says with his usual quaintness: "All the forest of religious foundations in England did shake, justly fearing the King would finish to fell the oaks, seeing the Cardinal began to cut the underwood." Henry, however, when he swept away the monasteries, spared his great minister's ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... the Queen's resignation they had no precedent; for the solemnity of the King's coronation they had many; and the same is at large, with all the circumstances and ceremonies thereof, set down by one of their authors, Wexionius (Epit. Descriptionis Sueciae, lib. v. c. 6), from which the ceremonies of this Coronation were not much different, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... law," said Madame Beattie. "They are very interesting personal questions, and I advise you to let them alone. You won't find any precedent for them ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... penalties, enforcing the most rigid etiquette. For he was one of those rare players who knew the game so thoroughly that while he, and the man he had taught, often ignored the classics of adversary play, the slightest relaxing of etiquette, rule, precept, or precedent, in his opponents, brought him out with a protest exacting the last item of ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... principle that there is an art or at least a craft of teaching is a condition precedent to any attempt to make teaching a profession in reality as ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... was a momentous one to Morse in more ways than one. The first of the historic lawsuits was to be begun at Frankfort, Kentucky,— lawsuits which were not only to establish this inventor's claims, but were to be used as a precedent in all future patent litigation. In his peaceful retreat on the banks of the Hudson he carefully and systematically prepared the evidence which should confound his enemies, and calmly awaited the verdict, firm in his faith that, however lowering the clouds, the sun would yet ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... have been still worse treated than the Arnolds!' And indeed, I have understood the Law-Courts, for some time after, found great difficulty to assert their authority: the parties against whom judgment went, taking refuge in the Arnold precedent, and appealing direct to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the past, it is strikingly original in presenting the ethics of the body as imperiously claiming recognition in the radical cure of inebriety. It forces attention to the physical and spiritual value of foods, and weaves precedent and precept into one of the most beguiling stories ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... sowing and reaping. There is no dogma except belief in this extrahuman influence—no conception of moral effort as based on and sanctioned by a definite moral ideal, no struggle of the sort that we call spiritual. Religion consists of a body of practices whose authority rests on precedent; as it is supposed they have existed from time immemorial, they are held to be necessary to secure the well-being of the tribe (a sufficient supply of food, or victory over enemies); to the question why such ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... sole equipment for initiating the career of the human race was that peculiar faculty which made them human—the capacity of man for binding time; we know that they actually did that work of initiation, without any guidance or example, maxim or precedent; and we know that they were able to do it just because the power of initiation—the power to originate—is a ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... appears to have been one which has gone out of use, viz. right hands joined, such as is often observed on ancient coins. Tacitus (Hist. i. ll.) calls it absolutely dextras, right hands. Among us it was called a faith (una fede. Comp. Eng. "Plight my troth"), and not without precedent, for on the coins of Vitellius, &c. right hands thus joined bear the motto Fides. An esteemed writer (Nider), in his Formicarium, mentions a rustic virgin who desired to find a material ring as a token of her espousal ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... deputations of traitors for that direct purpose; 9. Their murder of their sovereign, declared by most of the members of the Convention, who spoke with their vote, (without a disavowal from any,) to be perpetrated as an example to all kings and a precedent for all subjects to follow. All these, and not the Scheldt alone, or the invasion of Holland, were urged by the minister, and by Mr. Windham, by myself, and by others who spoke in those debates, as causes for bringing France to a sense ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... captains watched Edwards' face as he pondered whether he should or should not permit them to remain in the game. He did, however, allow both to play. Of course, this ruling was establishing a dangerous precedent; therefore, the next year the Rules Committee incorporated a new rule to the effect that two captains of opposing teams could not by mutual agreement permit a player who ought to be removed for committing a foul ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... usual and the weather, but I only caught fragments of it. All the signs were propitious, and as it had been a fine harvest under similar conditions before, people said it would be fine this time. But, unlike the law, the weather acknowledged no precedent, and nobody could tell, though folk now thought they knew everything. How all things had changed since the Queen ascended the throne! Not long since Hilary was talking with a labourer, an elderly man, ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... Ireland; and here again his successor seems to think that even he, who had nothing whatever to do with it, can take shelter under the ample protection it affords to all shortcomings with respect to the Irish Famine. But however good and praiseworthy this purchase of Indian meal was, the precedent it afforded was not to be followed; for, says the First Minister, "if it were to be considered as establishing a principle, for the Government to apply the resources of the Treasury for the purchase of ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... agin international law an' all rule an' precedent—I'd tell 'im I was a British subject born in Australia, and wrap a Union Jack around me stummick, an' dare 'im to come on. How'd that be ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... it." (St. L. 16, 882; Plitt, Apologie, 18.) Father Aegidius, the Emperor's confessor, said to Melanchthon, "You have a theology which a person can understand only if he prays much." Campegius is reported to have said that for his part he might well permit such teaching; but it would be a precedent of no little consequence, as the same permission would then have to be given other nations and kingdoms, which could not be tolerated. (Zoeckler, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... with Seor Posada, who observes that the vice-queens alone had the privilege of the entree, and seems to hesitate a good deal as to the advisableness of granting a permission which might be considered a precedent for others. However, I think he is too amiable to resist our united entreaties. I hold out as an argument, that C—-n, being the duplicado of the queen herself, my visit is equal to that of the vice-queen, which argument ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... can assure you it is," said Dunham, with a certain lady-like sweetness of manner which he had. "According to precedent, we ought to be ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... surcharge of the gloss or note of a later age, founded upon the fanciful traditions then prevailing with respect to the situation of the ancient Paradise." This certainly is cutting the knot; and, if erected into a precedent by the geologist, would no doubt greatly facilitate the labor of reconciliation. It would, however, be perilous work for him. "A wolf," says Plutarch, "peeping into a hut where a company of shepherds were assembled, saw them regaling themselves with a joint of mutton. 'Ye gods!' he exclaimed, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... practice.[25] It is so apt, indeed, that one could almost suspect Pope himself of making the translation and submitting it to Harte or his publisher. Pope had already invoked Boileau's name and precedent in the letter from "William Cleland"; nothing could be more logical than for Pope to turn the esteemed Boileau's self-justification to his ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... and covenants, though made to your disadvantage, though afterward you perceive you might have done better; and let not any precedent act of yours be altered by any after-accident. Let nothing make you break your promise, unless it be unlawful or impossible; that is, either out of your nature or out of your civil power, yourself being under the power of another; or that it be intolerably inconvenient to yourself, and of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... and tumbled for four hundred years without once touching them. Their ancestors had left France before Descartes or Newton had begun to teach the modern world to think. They knew no method of reasoning save by precedent, and had never caught the faintest reflection from the mind of that great, sweet thinker who said, "A stubborn retention of customs is a turbulent thing, no less than the introduction of new." To such ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the most far-reaching in importance of all those with which this government has to deal. The history of the world offers no precedent for our guidance, since no such peaceful invasion of alien peoples has ever before occurred. It must have great and largely unforeseen effects upon our form of civilization, our social and political institutions, and, above all, upon the physical, mental, and ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... not, monsieur, if it is the law, and there is precedent for it, as I have shown you, and if it can be established that what I state is the truth—as established it can be ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... policeman across the way grew wings, or if the deep sea rose and washed out the chaos of the land. I should not raise my eyebrows if the daily press became the Little Sunbeam of the Home, or if Cabinet Ministers struck for a decrease of wages. I feel no security in facts, precedent seems no protection to me. The wisdom you can find in an Encyclopedia, or in Selfridge's Information Bureau, seems to me just a transitory ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... were justified by the neglect of the Valois; the princes of the blood, more recent and lofty, disdained the alliance of his humble kindred: the parliament, without denying their proofs, eluded a dangerous precedent by an arbitrary distinction, and established St. Louis as the first father of the royal line. [77] A repetition of complaints and protests was repeatedly disregarded; and the hopeless pursuit was terminated in the present century by the death of the last ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... the civil and religious rights of a people trampled on! But his praaetorship in Sicily has crowned his career of wickedness, and completed the lasting monument of his infamy. His decisions have violated all law, all precedent, all right. His extortions from the industrious poor have been beyond computation. Our most faithful allies have been treated as enemies. Roman citizens have, like slaves, been put to death with tortures. Men the most worthy have been ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... editor has been unable to find any precedent for Chapman's application of this name—which in the Book of Job denotes the whale or hippopotamus—to the chief of the ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... pages of the Folio as what they virtually are in so many cases—namely, as but little better than our modern proof-sheets. And they should be dealt with accordingly by a modern critic; but only on one condition precedent: he must be Shakespeare's peer. In default of this we can only humbly erase here, and reverently suggest there, summoning to our aid all possible knowledge, lest in plucking up the tares we pluck up ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... Wednesday, the 27th, I was again summoned below. I found Percy Anderson waiting there: he had obtained from the War Office an order to see me alone, without limitation of time. I understood that there was no precedent for such a concession; the general rule being that prisoners should only receive their friends in the presence of an officer, who is bound to watch and listen jealously, while no interview can be extended beyond fifteen minutes. Never, surely, was a call better timed. I was at my ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... fifty-dollar fine for any taxpayer, or tenant, who puts rubbish out on the curb on any other day save the two mentioned in the main ordinance," Janice whispered to the selectman; "otherwise you will set a bad precedent with your Clean-Up Day, instead of doing ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... prevalence, observance; conventionalism, conventionality; mode, fashion, vogue; etiquette &c. (gentility) 852; order of the day, cry; conformity &c. 82; consuetude,.dustoor[obs3]. one's old way, old school, veteris vestigia flammae[Lat]; laudator temporis acti[Lat]. rule, standing order, precedent, routine; red-tape, red-tapism[obs3]; pipe clay; rut, groove. cacoethes[Lat]; bad habit, confirmed habit, inveterate habit, intrinsic habit &c.; addiction, trick. training &c. (education) 537; seasoning, second nature, acclimatization; knack &c. V. be wont &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... was against all precedent to hang an unconscious man and send him off to perdition without a chance to enter a plea for his soul, and he argued soberly, in the manner of a man who had a spirit of fairness in him, and a little gleam of reason and ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... he was under great obligations—'And Homer (damn him) calls'—it may be presumed that any body or any thing may be damned in verse by poetical license; and in case of accident, I beg leave to plead so illustrious a precedent."] ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... be dated from February 18, 1915, when Germany, citing as a precedent Great Britain's establishment of a military area in the North Sea, proclaimed a war zone "in the waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole English Channel," within which enemy merchant vessels would be sunk without assurance of safety to passengers or crew. Furthermore, as ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... subject as a whole, its rhythmic and harmonic unity as opposed to the fragmentary manner of treatment of most of their contemporaries; the lyric passion in line and tint; the same originality which often became waywardness in the conception of subject in itself; the same revolt from all precedent; and the same passion for subtle gradation and infinite space, air, and light—and some of Rousseau's skies were the most vaporous I have ever seen. These are the fundamental agreements of the art of the two great masters, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... Materiality and Death encourages in mankind the Hope of an existence beyond the impenetrable veil of physical limitation. And this at any rate may be admitted, namely, that that dynamic condition in which materiality arises is also the condition-precedent of Tridimensionality, of Force, of Time, and of Mutation. But we cannot thus account for the elan ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... Second had ordered it to be cancelled in his presence, and had, both by his own mouth and by a written message, assured the Houses that the step which had caused so much complaint should never be drawn into precedent. It would have been difficult to find in all the Inns of Court a barrister of reputation to argue in defence of a prerogative which the Sovereign, seated on his throne in full Parliament, had solemnly renounced a few years before. But ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... indeesputable fact. Toch!" No other combination of letters may convey the guttural, "Have I no' seen the lamps at warr'k mysel', after darr'k, at the end o' the roads that debouch upon the veld! The Dutchman would be able to plead precedent, I'm thinking." ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Irish Executive and commanded by Irish officers, would be none the less formidable because it might in name be identified with an armed police, or, like the troops raised at the Cape or in Victoria, enjoy the ominous title of Volunteers. If the Colonial precedent were strictly carried out, British troops ought, from the time Ireland obtained an independent Parliament, to be withdrawn from the country. The acknowledged danger of foreign invasion, and the unavowed probability ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... a sin to save souls out of church? Don't you think the Sermon on the Mount a very fair precedent ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... honour, being considered in all cases as a protection. The chiefs agreed to confiscate the land of the aggressor to the King of England. The whole proceeding, however, in thus trying and punishing a chief was entirely without precedent. The aggressor, moreover, lost caste in the estimation of his equals and this was considered by the British as of more consequence than the confiscation ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... were celebrating. The day of our coming of age had thus arrived, if I may be allowed to say so. But instead of the Republics now attaining their majority—as they should have done, according to all precedent—minority would have been a more fitting word to describe the condition in which we now found ourselves—for, through the losses which we had just sustained, we were minus not only a large ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... chap," said Shepler. "I had occasion not long since to tell him that a certain business plan he proposed was entirely without precedent. His answer was characteristic. He said, 'We make precedents in the West when we can't find one to suit us.' It seemed so typical of the people to me. You never can tell what they may do. You see they were ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... heads this paper is intended to be Latin, and is modelled on the precedent of the De Amicitia, De Senectute, De Corona, and other time-honoured plagues of our innocent boyhood. It is meant to give dignity and authority to the subject with which it deals, as well as to rouse curiosity ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... all possibility of reunion. He referred to a late conversation with Peel, in which Peel had intimated his intention of remaining in parliament and acting for himself without party, to which Herbert replied that he knew of no minister who had done so except lord Bute, a bad precedent. Peel rejoined 'Lord Grenville,' showing that his mind had been at work upon the subject. He had heard him not long ago discussing his position with Lord Aberdeen and Sir James Graham, when he said, putting his hand ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... them, had we submitted to their dominion? Their perfidious conduct towards our king and his whole family, whom they deceived and decoyed into France under the promise of an eternal armistice, in order to chain them all, has no precedent in history. Their conduct towards the whole nation is more iniquitous, than we had the right to expect from a horde of Hottentots. They have profaned our temples; they have insulted our religion; they have assailed our wives; ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000; in Egypt, a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy victims were sawn asunder, according to a precedent to which David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails like a girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p. 1145. * Note: Some commentators, among them Reimar, in his ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... stay in England with the nominal appointment as assistant surgeon to H.M.S. "Fisguard" at Woolwich, for "particular service," but with leave of absence from the ship so that he could live and pursue his avocations in London. There was a precedent for this course in the case of Dr. Hooker, when he had to work out the scientific results of the voyage of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... that descended upon them and demanded inflexibly to be taken up to Patusan was discomposing; his insistence was alarming; his generosity more than suspicious. It was an unheard-of request. There was no precedent. What would the Rajah say to this? What would he do to them? The best part of the night was spent in consultation; but the immediate risk from the anger of that strange man seemed so great that at last a cranky dug-out was got ready. The women shrieked with grief as it put off. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... down living trees, a person should publish his sin and fast for three nights. By having intercourse with one with whom intercourse is prohibited, the expiation for one is wandering in wet clothes and sleeping on a bed of ashes. These, O king, are the expiations for sinful acts, according to precedent and reason and scriptures and the ordinances. A Brahmana may be cleansed of all sins by reciting the Gayatri in a sacred place, all the while living upon frugal fare, casting off malice, abandoning wrath and hate, unmoved by praise and blame, and abstaining from speech. He should during the day-time ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the soul of woman? As well essay to number the silk hairs on the moth's wing, or paint truly the hues in the blown bubble! The soul of woman dwells apart, subject to no laws, trammelled by no precedent; mysterious in its essence, strong in its very frailty, it passes through many phases to its ultimate end, working as all great agents work, silently and in ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... also as indicating that their activity to a good extent falls under that category of conspicuous leisure known as manners and breeding, that the learned class in all primitive communities are great sticklers for form, precedent, gradations of rank, ritual, ceremonial vestments, and learned paraphernalia generally. This is of course to be expected, and it goes to say that the higher learning, in its incipient phase, is a leisure-class occupation—more specifically ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... to take charge of their interests, and for this duty estates were set aside. This party or lineage was called ayllu If there was no second son, or if there was one who was incapable, the duty was to be passed on to the nearest and ablest relation. And that those to come might have a precedent or example, Manco Ccapac made the first ayllu and called it Chima Panaca Ayllu, which means the lineage descending from Chima, because the first to whom he left his ayllu or lineage in charge was named Chima, ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... or praise; For so should I dishonour do To that sweet Power by which these Lays Alone are lovely, good, and true; Nor credence to the world's cries give, Which ever preach and still prevent Pure passion's high prerogative To make, not follow, precedent. From love's abysmal ether rare If I to men have here made known New truths, they, like new stars, were there Before, though not yet written down. Moving but as the feelings move, I run, or loiter with delight, Or pause to ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... officer. If not an officer of the government, he is nothing. He is, at all events, deemed to be an officer of the government in foreign countries, and enjoys immunities as such. Besides, it is a dangerous precedent to name to any situation under a pretence like this, as the practice may become gradually enlarged. But I care nothing as to the legality of the common appointments of this nature, the question being as to the tone of the nominees. You may be assured that I shall ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the devil vanished with great horrour; but Fryar Bacon comforted the gentleman, and sent him home with a quiet conscience, bidding him never to pay the devil's money back, as he tendred his own safety, which he promised for to observe." From these instances, Melanax might have quoted precedent for insisting on the literal execution of his stipulation with Malicorn, since, to give the devil his due, the strict legal interpretation appears always to have been applied to bargains ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... was modelled on the precedent of other royal funerals, but surely rarely was mourning so keen or sorrow ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... impossible. If the manager of a theatre saw fit to produce "adult" matter without excluding people under the age of eighteen, let us say, he would have to take his chance, and it would be a good one, of a prosecution. This latter expedient is less novel than the former, and it finds a sort of precedent in the legislative restriction of the sale of drink to children and the protection of children's morals ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... not the way, they said, to treat princes in their splendor and mysterious troubadours concealing kingly names; it was not in accordance with fable; myth had no precedent for it. She should have thrown her glove, they said, into some lion's den, she should have asked for a score of venomous heads of the serpents of Licantara, or demanded the death of any notable ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... the forms of column sketched here have any existence in reality. They are purposely kept apart from imitation of accepted forms to get rid of the idea that architecture consists in the acceptance of any particular form sanctioned by precedent.] ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... they were stern-faced and intense. They had made laws of their own, they had established a code. The violation of either was not to be countenanced. It was of no consequence to them that Judge Malone's methods were without precedent, that they were not even a travesty in the true ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... of one, that it was a love song, and of another, that it was a farewell composed by one of the Islanders that was going, in this epidemical fury of emigration, to seek his fortune in America. What sentiments would arise, on such an occasion, in the heart of one who had not been taught to lament by precedent, I should gladly have known; but the lady, by whom I sat, thought herself not equal to ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... Saint-Pierre. General Marmont, commanding the artillery, had already been sent forward to find a means of transporting cannon over the Alps. It was almost an impracticable thing to do; and yet it must be achieved. No precedent existed as a guide. Hannibal with his elephants, Numidians, and Gauls; Charlemagne with his Franks, had no such ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... post mortem it was found that his lungs were nearly gone.] Mr. Kermode endeavoured to prevail with Lord Bathurst, to authorise a grant of land; but Mr. Wilmot Horton, then Under Secretary, objected that there were millions of British subjects, whose claims were of the same kind, and that the precedent would be inconvenient. At the same time, men in chains were receiving grants of land, and emancipists as a matter of course; but the minister was opposed to admit a claim founded on birth, orphanage, and civilisation, lest it should multiply applicants. As if anything could have ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... and evening and noon as fitting hours of prayer, and one psalmist, in his enthusiasm, had even gone so far as to declare seven times a day to be not too often for giving God thanks. There was also the precedent of Daniel opening his windows toward Jerusalem three times a day. As the love for order and system grew year by year stronger in the Christian Church, the laws that govern ritual would be likely to become more stringent, and so very probably ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... was not pacified, and began to take counsel how they could turn Furetiere out of their body. There was no precedent for such a degradation, but a parallel was sought for in the fact that the Sorbonne had successfully ejected one of its most famous doctors, Arnauld. Meanwhile the suit went on, the Thirty-nine versus the One. Furetiere is said to have bowed for a moment ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... of Patricia Langdon, lest somehow what was said should get to her ears. She was one who knew how to retaliate, and to do so quickly. She was like a man in that she feared nothing, and hesitated at nothing, so long as she knew it to be right. A precedent had no force with her; if she desired to act, and there was no precedent for what she wished to ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... of this bill into a law will establish a precedent which will tend to destroy the equal independence of the several branches of the Government. Its principle places not merely the Senate and the Executive, but the judiciary also, under the coercive dictation of the House. The House alone will be the judge ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... formed a contrast so frightful with the heartless and cruel insensibility of the son, that the sight chilled their blood. The sentiment was only the more common, from the silent but general conviction, that the unfeeling criminal must be permitted to escape. There was, indeed, no precedent for leading the child of a prince to the block, unless it were for an offence which touched the preservation of the father's interests. Much was said in maxims and apophthegms of the purity and necessity of rigid impartiality in administering the affairs of life, but ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... reconciliation." Obviously the danger of an Apostle from a misinformed mob is no sort of evidence to divine approval or disapproval of his behaviour. {67} We shall later find that when Knox was urging on some English nonconformists the beauty of conformity (1568), he employed the very precedent of St. Paul's conduct at Jerusalem, which he rejected when it was urged ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... into Tidborough in the morning it was to know at once that this to-morrow gave no lie to its precedent day. It intensified it. The previous day foreshadowed war. The ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Hunter, one of the commissioners, made a long reply to this, insisting that the recognition of Davis's power to make a treaty was the first and indispensable step to peace, and referred to the correspondence between King Charles I. and his Parliament as a trustworthy precedent of a constitutional ruler treating with rebels. Lincoln's face then wore that indescribable expression which generally preceded his hardest hits, as he remarked: 'Upon questions of history I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is posted in such ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... by a foreign state of any communication to a branch of the Government not contemplated by the Constitution for the reception of communications from foreign states might, if allowed to pass without notice, become a precedent for the address by foreigners or by foreign states of communications of a different nature ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... placing her two hands on the knobs of the chair in which she sat, leaned passionately forward. Who could say she was cold now? Who could see anything but a feeling heart in this woman, beautiful beyond all precedent in her passion ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... preparation been free from a sort of noisy violence, a certain massive dullness of conception? Have we really made anything like a sane use of our resources? I do not mean of our resources in money or stuff. It is manifest that the next naval war will be beyond all precedent a war of mechanisms, giving such scope for invention and scientifically equipped wit and courage as the world has never had before. Now, have we really developed any considerable proportion of the potential human quality available to meet the demand for wits? What are ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... ourselves of provincialism. Society is far larger than America, or China, or Russia, or all the islands of the sea in combination. It may entail some straining at the mental leash to win this concept of society, but it must be won as a condition precedent to a fair and just estimate of what the function of education really is and what it is of which the schoolhouse must be an exponent. Society must be thought of as including all nations, tribes, and tongues. In our thinking, the word "society" ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... an old rule. Nobody knew when it first came into vogue. Mr. Eames, bibliographer of Nepenthe, had traced it down to the second Phoenician period, but saw no reason why the Phoenicians, more than anybody else, should have established the precedent. On the contrary, he was inclined to think that it dated from yet earlier days; days when the Troglodytes, Manigones, Septocardes, Merdones, Anthropophagoi and other hairy aboriginals used to paddle across, in crazy canoes, to barter the produce of their savage African glens-serpent-skins, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... them.... But, the tale runs, the Governor looked——He certainly did establish a precedent at that dinner. Mockers say that Judge Pat McCarran ran a close second, because his Excellency is lean and lank, while Judge McCarran would make two of him one way, and almost half of him the other, and because what happened to Governor Boyle had also happened to ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... with obvious reluctance, but he made a condition precedent to his acceptance. "Le' 's see Hull first, just you 'n' me. I ain't strong for the police. We'll go to them when we've got an open ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... rigid tone, to put old wine into new bottles, which betrays a want of confidence in the expansive power of God. I hate with a deep-seated hatred all such attempts to bind and confine the rising tide of thought. I want to see religion vital and not formal, elastic and not cramped by precedent and tradition. And thus I love to see worship enshrined in noble classical buildings, which seem to me to speak of a desire to infuse the intellectual spirit of Greece, the dignified imperialism of Rome into the more timid and secluded ecclesiastical life, making it fuller, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... finally agreed, then, that the Columbiad must be cast on the soil of either Texas or Florida. The result, however, of this decision was to create a rivalry entirely without precedent between the different towns of these ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... to decide justly with his people that he found himself swamped with cases of every sort and description. He tried to pass upon each case by its merits, regardless of law and precedent. Then other judges construed his decisions as law, and the lesser courts cited the upper ones, until Gibbon says, "There grew up such a mass of judge-made laws that a skilful lawyer could prove anything, and legal practise ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... now forever still; finding things to say that an assailed boy could not have found, simply because of the mysteriousness of his impulses to himself. I understood no more than the people who called upon me to explain myself. There was no precedent. I verily believe mine was the only case of a boy of my nationality and antecedents taking a, so to speak, standing jump out of his racial surroundings and associations. For you must understand that there was no idea of any sort of "career" in my call. Of Russia or Germany there could be no ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... done, or could do, anything different from other men; and, in spite of the mystery, one felt that he was transparently honest and sincere. He was always the same, always true to himself; but then, that 'self' was a something PER SE, which could not be categorically classed - precedent for guidance was lacking. There is little doubt Burton had gipsy blood in his veins; there was something Oriental in his temperament, and even in ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... his fiefs. In the war which followed and ended in 1204, Philip not only gained the great Norman dukedom, which gave him the command of Rouen and of the mouth of the Seine, as well as Anjou, Maine, and Poitou, the countries which held the Loire in their power, but established the precedent that a crown vassal was amenable to justice, and might be made to forfeit his lands. What he had won by the sword he held by wisdom and good government. Seeing that the cities were capable of being made to balance the power of the nobles, he granted them privileges which caused him to be esteemed ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... downfall of Iturbide, the malcontents in Central America bestirred themselves to throw off the Mexican yoke. On July 1,1823, a Congress declared the region an independent republic under the name of the "United Provinces of Central America." In November of the next year, following the precedent established in Mexico, and obedient also to local demand, the new republic issued a constitution, in accordance with which the five little divisions of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica were to become states of a federal union, ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd |
